1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing apparatus, a printing method for the printing apparatus and a computer readable recording medium that stores a control program for this printing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is a printing apparatus as an apparatus for preparing a specific label by setting a cassette which accommodates a tape member in the apparatus and printing arbitrarily characters that are inputted from an inputting device such as a keyboard or that are outputted from other equipment on a print receiving tape of the tape member.
For example, as described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application No. 7-205529, as this type of printing apparatus, there is a printing apparatus for preparing an appropriate label by printing a mark or the like in a tape blank space that is generated over a distance defined between a printing mechanism and a tape cutting mechanism. In this disclosed printing apparatus, text data is deployed as an image and a mark that is set in advance is also deployed as an image for storage in an image buffer of an RAM. Then, the text data stored in the image buffer is printed by a thermal head, and the mark is printed on the tape by the time when an end of a series of character strings that are successively printed passes a cutter mechanism, thereby making it possible to make effective use of the blank space on the tape by printing the mark on a rear blank space that would otherwise be wasted originally.
In the printing apparatus, however, a process of determining whether or not the label printing continues after the label printing is completed is not executed. In a general printing apparatus, in order to ensure an appropriate amount of rear blank space, after the printing of a label is completed, a process of feeding a print receiving tape without printing or idly is executed, and following this, the print receiving tape is fed idly by a distance defined between a thermal head and a cutter mechanism, the print receiving tape being then cut.
When continuing printing a label, the print receiving tape is not necessarily cut at the completion of the previous printing and the label printing may continue. However, in the printing apparatus described above, since the process of determining whether or not the label printing continues without any interruption is not executed after the completion of the label printing, there is caused a problem that the print receiving tape is consumed wastefully by such an extent that the print receiving tape is fed idly by the distance defined between the thermal head and the cutter mechanism.